Shorty McCabe on the Job | Page 8

hand next morning when that shop
opened, and for a bonus of twenty francs I persuaded the old pirate to
sell me the sketch he was holding for Twombley-Crane. It was a beauty
too; one of the half-dozen Whistler did in working up that portrait of
his mother, perhaps his most famous piece. It's about the only sketch of
the kind, too, not in a public gallery. How Twombley-Crane must have
raved at that Frenchman! So, as the English put it, I did score off him a

bit, you see."
"You sure did," says I. "That picture collection is what he's daffy over;
even more so than over his horses. And right there, J. Bayard, is your
cue."
"Eh?" says he, starin' puzzled.
"Simple as swearin' off taxes," says I. "Send him the sketch."
Mr. Steele gasps. "Wha-a-at!" says he. "Why, I've been offered ten
times what I paid for it, and refused; although there have been times
when--well, you understand. My dear McCabe, that little pencil
drawing is much more to me than a fragment of genius. It stands for
satisfaction. It's something that I own and he wants."
"And there you are," says I. "Been rackin' your nut to dig up something
kind and generous to do for him, ain't you! Well?"
Say, you should have seen the look J. Bayard gives me at that! It's a
mixture of seven diff'rent kinds of surprise, reproach, and indignation.
And the line of argument he puts up too! How he does wiggle and
squirm over the very thought of givin' that picture to Twombley-Crane,
after he'd done the gloat act so long!
But I had the net over Mr. Steele good and fast, and while I was about
it I dragged him over a few bumps; just for the good of his soul, as
Father Reardon would say.
"Oh, come!" says I. "You're makin' the bluff that you want to scatter
deeds of kindness; but when I point one out, right under your nose, you
beef about it like you was bein' frisked for your watch. A hot idea of
bein' an angel of mercy you've got, ain't you? Honest now, in your
whole career, was you ever guilty of wastin' a kind word, or puttin' out
the helpin' hand, if you couldn't see where it might turn a trick for J.
Bayard Steele?"
Makes him wince a little, that jab does, and he flushes up under the

eyes.
"I don't know that I have ever posed either as a philanthropist or a
saint," says he. "If I seem to have assumed a rôle of that sort now, it is
because it has been thrust upon me, because I have been caught in a
web of circumstances, a tangle of things, without purpose, without
meaning. That's what life has always been to me, always will be, I
suppose,--a blind, ruthless maze, where I've snatched what I could for
myself, and given up what I couldn't hold. Your friend Gordon did his
share in making it so for me; this man Twombley-Crane as well. Do
you expect me to be inspired with goodness and kindliness by them?"
"Oh, Pyramid had his good points," says I. "You'd find
Twombley-Crane has his, if you knew him well enough."
"And who knows," adds Steele, defiant and bitter, "but that I may have
mine?"
I glances at him curious. And, say, with that set, hard look in them
narrow eyes, and the saggy droop to his mouth corners, he's almost
pathetic. For the first time since he'd drifted across my path I didn't feel
like pitchin' him down the stairs.
"Well, well!" says I soothin'. "Maybe you have. But you don't force 'em
on folks, do you? That ain't the point, though. The question before the
house is about that----"
"Suppose I hand back Twombley-Crane's name," says he, "and try
another?"
I shakes my head decided. "No dodgin'," says I. "That point was
covered in Pyramid's gen'ral directions. If you do it at all, you got to
take the list as it runs. But what's a picture more or less? All you got to
do is wrap it up, ship it to Twombley-Crane, and----"
"I--I couldn't!" says J. Bayard, almost groanin'. "Why, I've disliked him
for years, ever since he sent out that cold no! I've always hoped that
something would happen to bend that stiff neck of his; that a panic

would smash him, as I was smashed. But he has gone on, growing
richer and richer, colder and colder. And when I got this sketch away
from him--well, that was a crumb of comfort. Don't you see?"
"Kind of stale and picayune, Steele, it strikes me," says I. "Course,
you're the doctor. If you'd rather see all them other folks that you
dislike come in for